Editor's Note: As an important part of the socialist rule of law system with Chinese characteristics, the construction foreign-related rule of law is of great significance to the comprehensive rule of law, as well as to China's opening up and diplomatic work. Since the 18th Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Party Central Committee, with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, has placed great importance on the construction of foreign-related rule law, and has been continuously deepening the theoretical innovation and practical exploration of the construction of foreign-related rule of law. On October 28, 2025 the 18th meeting of the Standing Committee of the 14th National People's Congress voted to adopt the newly revised Maritime Code of the People's Republic China, which will be officially implemented on May 1 this year. What has been the rationale behind this revision to build a more open and comprehensive legal system? What solid legal guarantees been laid for the modernization of shipping governance system and the high-quality development of shipping? This column is honored to invite Han Hongjun, President, Professor, and Doctoralisor of Dalian Maritime University, to write a signed article, which will be published soon. Han Hongjun, President, Professor, and Doctoral Supervisor ofalian Maritime University On October 28, 2025, after being deliberated and adopted by the 18th meeting of the Standing Committee of the14th National People's Congress, the newly revised Maritime Code of the People's Republic of China (hereinafter referred to as the new Maritime Code) officially promulgated and will be implemented on May 1, 2026. This revision of the Maritime Code of 1993 (hereinafter referred to as the current Maritime Code) is based on the strategic overall situation of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and the world's unprecedented changes, closely linked to mission of the times of building maritime and shipping powers, aiming to provide solid support for shipping governance and high-quality development with high-level system and rules, and carried out a and fundamental reshaping on the basis of fully summarizing the successful experience of the past thirty years of China's shipping industry and the excellent achievements of maritime judicial trials, while referring the current development status of relevant international conventions or rules. If the main feature of the current Maritime Code is "legal transplantation", then the main feature of the new Mar Code is "Chinese wisdom and Chinese plan". The new Maritime Code not only marks a new level of the theoretical and legislative practice of the socialist shipping rule of law with Chinese in the new era, but also marks the development of China's maritime law into a "free kingdom". The current Maritime Code has made indelible contributions to rapid development of China's port and shipping industry in the past thirty years and the series of achievements achieved. The formulation and implementation of the current Maritime Code is an important milestone in the process of China's reform and opening-up. The law came into effect on July 1, 1993, coinciding with the initial stage the construction of China's socialist market economic system. At that time, the legislators, following the principles of independence, self-reliance, and reference to international practices, successfully a maritime legal system that not only conforms to China's reality but also helps to integrate into the international pattern. The current Maritime Code was praised as "the most internationally law" at that time.

Over the past three decades, the current Maritime Code of China has played an indispensable role in regulating maritime transport and ship relations, and protecting the rights and interests of all parties involved in shipping trade. It has not only greatly promoted the rapid development of China's shipping industry but has provided a solid institutional guarantee for the healthy development of China's foreign trade and the security and stability of the logistics supply chain. Data shows that China has consistently ranked first in the in terms of total imports and exports of goods for many years, and the throughput of ports and containers has steadily ranked among the top in the world. China has become the largest ship in the world. Behind this series of brilliant achievements, the current Maritime Code of China has made inestimable contributions. It is an inevitable requirement for the construction of maritime and shipping power in China to revise the current Maritime Code. General Secretary Xi Jinping profoundly pointed out: "Economic powers must be maritime powers and shipping powers." " is impossible to do a good job in reform, development, and stability without the rule of law. The deeper the reform and opening up go, the more emphasis should be placed on rule of law." Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Party and the state have made historical achievements in all aspects and made historical changes a deep level and fundamental nature. At present, China has become the world's second-largest economy, the largest exporter of goods, and the largest country in shipping assets With China entering a new journey of comprehensively building a socialist modernized country, the construction of maritime power and shipping power has put forward higher requirements for the construction of shipping rule law. Constrained by the historical conditions at the time of legislation, the adaptability contradiction between the current Maritime Code and the new stage of development, new development concepts, new development patterns has gradually become apparent. This law can no longer be applied to some activities in key areas, emerging areas, and foreign-related areas of shipping. There are regulatoryopholes in the field of new technologies and new applications of shipping. On the one hand, against the background of the comprehensive advancement of the construction of Digital China, the wave of digital economy has profoundly reshaped the shipping industry. The application of digital tools such as electronic bills of lading and blockchain documents has become the new norm in shipping practice. However the original legal framework has shown obvious regulatory lag and insufficient institutional supply in dealing with this trend, and the "generation gap" between digital practice and legal rules has objectively limited the and speed of the digital transformation of the shipping industry. On the other hand, with the rise of the construction of ecological civilization to the national strategic deployment, the concept that "l waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets" has been deeply rooted in people's hearts, and China's marine environmental protection, as an important part of ecological civilization construction, has a historic leap from local work to global and strategic missions. The lack of system in the current Maritime Code in terms of ship pollution damage compensation can not meet the needs of marine civilization construction for high-quality legal rules guarantee.

Meanwhile, since the promulgation and implementation of the current Maritime Code on July 1, 193, a series of new international maritime legislations such as the 2002 Protocol to the Athens Convention Relating to the Carriage of Passengers and their Lug by Sea, 1974, the International Convention on Civil Liability for Pollution Damage by Oil in 2001, the Maritime Labour Convention, 206, and the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Carriage of Goods Wholly or Partly by Sea, 2008 have been introduced successively The institutional design of these new international maritime legislations has brought challenges to the maintenance of the “same frequency” between China's maritime law and international rules. In addition, the background of the increasingly deepening trade and shipping cooperation between China and the countries along the “the Belt and Road”, it has become an urgent task to construct the foreign- legal system adapted to it, in order to promote China's high-level opening-up. Located in the era coordinate of the great changes that have not occurred in century and the strategic pattern of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, it is not only the inherent requirement of promoting the modernization of China's national governance system and governance, but also the key measure to deepen China's participation in and lead the global marine governance, shipping governance, and it is an inevitable requirement for China to build a maritime and a shipping power. The institutional design of the new Maritime Code conforms to the inherent requirements of the modernization of China's shipping governance system and high-quality. The new Maritime Code consists of 16 chapters and 310 articles. Compared with the current Maritime Code, the new law is not a simple content expansion just adding 32 articles and setting up 1 chapter of “Liability for Oil Pollution Damage from Ships”. Instead, it focuses on the modernization of Chinas shipping governance system, aims to guarantee the high-quality development of China's shipping industry, and innovates and re-shapes the current Maritime Code in a systematic overall way.

First, it safeguards the blue ecology and builds a legal barrier for a beautiful China. The new Maritime Code constructs a system for ship oil pollution damage in a special chapter, and introduces and extends the institutional design of the International Convention on Civil Liability for Oil Pollution Damage from Ships, 992 and the International Convention on Civil Liability for Bunker Oil Pollution Damage, 2001 to domestic ship oil pollution, and provides compensation guarantee with insurance, supplemented by the compensation fund mechanism constructed by the owner's contribution. In addition, the new Maritime Code transforms the concept of environmental protection into the rules of traditional legal systems such as maritime disaster relief and general average. These rules together construct a comprehensive marine ecological and environmental legal protection system with "prevention-oriented, strict liability, and-relief" as its core, which is a concrete practice of ecological civilization construction in the field of maritime code legislation. Second, it conforms to the digital transformation and the development of new productive forces in shipping. The new Maritime Code conforms to the trend of digital economy development. The special section "Electronic Transport Records" added to Chapter "Contract for the Carriage of Goods by Sea" confirms the equal legal effect of electronic and paper documents at the legal level. The new Maritime Code adheres to the principles technological neutrality and functional equivalence, and gives electronic and paper documents equal legal status, reserving institutional space for the application of cutting-edge technologies such as block chains and artificial intelligence an inclusive attitude; Through the construction of clear rules for the issuance, circulation and identification of electronic documents, the long-term constraints on the efficiency of shipping and trade caused by documents have been effectively resolved, which will significantly reduce the institutional transaction cost, and will greatly enhance China's rules advantage and efficiency advantage in the competition of global shipping and trade. institutional breakthrough of the new Maritime Code not only lays a regulatory foundation for the digital transformation of shipping, but also demonstrates the strategic vision of promoting industrial upgrading and fostering new forces through law, which fully reflects the forward-looking and advanced nature of the new Maritime Code.

Third, uphold the people-centered position and build a solid legal foundation for the protection of and interests. The revision of the existing Maritime Code has actively implemented the people-centered governance concept, taking the protection of people's livelihoods and the maintenance of fairness as starting point and the foothold of system design. The new Maritime Code has significantly increased the standard of personal injury compensation and supplemented it with a compulsory insurance mechanism, fully protecting the rights and interests of passengers; in terms of the rights and interests of seafarers, it clarifies their labor contract rights and solidifies the institutional foundation for the of seafarers' rights and interests with clear legal provisions; in terms of the limitation of liability for maritime claims, it takes into comprehensive consideration the need to strengthen the protection of' rights and interests in the new era, the bearing capacity of our shipping enterprises and the requirements to participate in international competition, and appropriately raises the limit of various maritime liability claims, more adequate relief for victims; in terms of countermeasures, it creatively adds countermeasure clauses, building a strong legal defense line for maintaining the legitimate interests of shipping industry and promoting the high-quality development of the shipping industry. Fourth, realize the quasi-unification of domestic and international maritime cargo transport legal systems and serve new development pattern. The most important breakthrough of the new Maritime Code is to achieve the maximum degree of integration of domestic maritime and international maritime cargo transport legal systems. The current Mar Code, Chapter IV "Maritime Cargo Transport Contract", is not applicable to maritime cargo transport between ports of our country. The new Maritime Code incorporates domestic maritime cargo transport ports of our country into the scope of adjustment. Except for the retention of differences in the areas of liability basis, the obligation of seaworthiness of the ship, the determination delayed delivery, and the exemption matters, the new law unifies the rules system for domestic maritime and international maritime cargo transport. The bill of lading, which plays an important role the field of international maritime cargo transport and international trade, will enter the domestic maritime cargo transport and domestic trade fields with the "quasi-unification" rules system of the Maritime Code, and will thus strongly promote the high-quality development of China's domestic cargo trade and serve the construction of a new development pattern with domestic circulation as the main and domestic and international circulation promoting each other. Fifth, improve the provisions on the application of law in foreign-related relations and demonstrate the confidence in the system. The improvement of the new Maritime Code on the rules of law applicable to foreign-related relations is a legislative achievement of milestone significance in which China coordinates and promotes domestic law and foreign- law. The provisions of the new Maritime Code that international maritime cargo transport where the port of loading or the port of discharge is located in the territory of the People's of China compulsorily applies the provisions of Chapter IV of the Maritime Code can effectively maintain our judicial sovereignty and national interests on the basis of adhering to the principles of law; the "public interest reservation" clause reserves necessary space for the maintenance of our national security; the provisions that the ownership of a ship under construction and the mortgage of a ship be governed by the law of the place where the ship is constructed and that the right of lien on a ship shall be governed by the law of the place where the ship is can effectively protect the interests of our shipbuilding enterprises and promote the healthy development of our shipbuilding industry. These institutional designs in Chapter XV of the new Maritime Code, together with institutions in the same chapter, construct a legal system for the application of law in foreign-related maritime and shipping relations that complies with international treaties and is also capable of maintaining our judicial sovereignty, which is a concentrated reflection of the achievements of the construction of China's foreign-related shipping legal system in the new era.

As a solid legal foundation for the modernization of our shipping governance system and high-quality development, the new Maritime Code unifies rules to condense force for development, empowers the industry with digital technology to help transform the industry, interprets the governance temperature with humanistic care, and aligns with international rules through open. It is not only an important institutional guarantee for China to build itself into a maritime power and a shipping power, but also a milestone for China to actively participate in and even lead continuous evolution of global maritime rules in the new era. (Liaoxin News Agency)